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How Facebook let a friend pass my data to Cambridge Analytica

Someone passed on my data – but who?

Adam Goff

By Timothy Revell

THERE is an unwitting mole among my friends. Without my permission, they passed my personal information to a Facebook app called This Is Your Digital Life. It eventually ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica, the company now famed for using questionable tactics in an effort to influence election campaigns.

Facebook won’t say for certain exactly what happened, nor which friend was involved. Only 270,000 people used the TIYDL app, but Facebook estimates that Cambridge Analytica ended up with data from 87 million people.